Austria’s performance in STI is stagnating

Since 2022, the FTI-Monitor has shown stagnating performance in Austria’s research, technology and innovation (RTI) system, making it clear that this is partly due to the growing gap between increasing inputs and barely rising outputs – in other words, innovation performance. This pattern is also reflected in the leading international rankings.

Recently, Austria continued to lose ground in the IMD World Competitiveness Index: while the country was ranked 16th in 2020, by 2025 it has dropped to 26th place. In contrast, countries such as Sweden and Switzerland have maintained or even improved their positions.

There is also a sideways trend visible in the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS): although Austria remains in the group of Strong Innovators, it is ranked 8th again this year – the same as in 2020. The Innovation Leaders stand out in particular for their strong human resources, high-performing research systems, advanced levels of digitisation and robust productivity.

A similar picture emerges from the Global Innovation Index (GII), which assesses the innovation performance of 139 economies using 78 indicators: Austria has slipped from 17th to 19th place – returning to its 2020 level. Notably, China has made significant advances and has even overtaken Germany, meaning it now appears for the first time among the top 10 – despite its status as an upper middle-income economy.